Saab

Beijing Automotive Industry Corp, or BAIC, is looking to buy Italian design firm Pininfarina. The Chinese automaker is already working with Pininfarina in collaboration on its upcoming models based on older Saabs.

Since mid-2009, Pininfarina’s family ownership has been looking to unload its majority stake in the company. Interest from several Chinese automakers has been piqued and BAIC is not alone in bidding for the right to purchase the design house. Brilliance and Anhui Jianghuai Automobile have put in bids, as have Indian automakers Mahindra and Bajaj Auto and Canadian parts supplier Magna International.

Regardless of BAIC submitting a winning bid, work with Pininfarina is proceeding and we expect to see the fruits of both companies’ efforts at a car show sometime in the very near future.

The news Saab has been making in the past few months – the defection of its sales director, declining sales numbers, worker layoffs – runs counter to the feel-good story of the brand’s very existence. On the other side of that, though, the brand is still here, there’s a resurrected factory in Sweden still pumping out cars, Jason Castriota is still working on an anxiously anticipated 9-3, and the 9-4X – unveiled to general acclaim recently at the LA Auto Show – is just months away from retail.

That’s a lot going on for such a small, and new, company. We sat down with Saab chairman Victor Muller and president Jan-Ake Jonsson to find out what makes the 9-4X a real Saab, how the 9-3 is progressing, and where the 9-2 and ePower rank on the company’s to-do list.

Saab may been been saved from an untimely death by Spyker, but sales have yet to rebound. According toReuters, union representative Hakan Skott says the poor sales mean Saab will cut its workforce by 200 jobs, bringing overall employment at its Trollhättan complex from about 1,600 to 1,400. Skott claims this is no surprise, given that Saab’s sales forecast was revised downward from 45,000 units to between 30,000 and 35,000 for all of 2010.

Cutting nearly 15 percent of all factory jobs is a serious issue, but Skott feels (hopes?) sales will pick up in February or March. Saab didn’t comment on the report, though Spyker CEO Victor Muller reportedly toldDagens Industri that there was “no reason to worry,” adding that Saab still intends to build 80,000 vehicles in 2011. Muller added that temporary workers are the ones receiving pink slips.

When we think of the most capable sporting chassis manufacturers in the auto industry, BMW sits near the top of the list. So it makes sense that Saab would be interested in forming a partnership with the German automaker to produce a front-wheel drive platform for the 9-2 supermini.

Saab boss Victor Muller told Reuters it was searching for a partner to provide hardware, adding that he can’t say which automaker he’d prefer to work with. Having said that, Muller added “BMW would make a wonderful partner.” And Muller would know a thing or two about partnering with the boys and girls at the Bavarian Motor Werks since the two automakers just consummated a tie-up on engine development.

At this point we don’t know for sure whether the 9-2 will ever see the light of day. But if the supermini does materialize it makes quite a bit of sense to us that a BMW chassis will accompany it’s powertrain. If we’re lucky the 9-2 will look as good as the above concept.

Much like the 2010 9-5 sedan, the fate of Saab’s 9-4X crossover hung in limbo during General Motors’ sale of the Scandinavian automaker. Now that Saab is safely under the umbrella of Spyker Cars, the new 9-5 is trickling out on the road and we’ve just received the full host of images and data detailing the production-spec 9-4X, set to be publicly revealed at this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show.

While the 9-4X’s styling is clearly the evolution of Saab’s Aero X concept, the Cadillac SRX provides much of the crossover’s groundwork – this vehicle was wholly developed during the GM era, after all. This means that both the Caddy’s 3.0-liter V6 (265 horsepower) and turbocharged 2.8-liter V6 (300 horsepower) are on hand in the 9-4X, mated to six-speed automatic transmissions. The base engine can be had with either front- or all-wheel drive, while the turbo engine is solely offered with Saab’s torque-vectoring XWD all-wheel-drive system. Saab has also fitted its DriveSense adaptive chassis system to Aero models, which offers three different drive setups: Comfort, Sport and Eco.Read more…